ARRA Simplified

Oct 2009 , Sponsored by Microsoft

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provides great opportunities for state and local governments, but it also brings tremendous challenges. How do agencies get the stimulus funds? How do they track the funds once they have them? How do they meet the stringent reporting requirements, and maintain unprecedented transparency and accountability?

There are a slew of questions, but one thing is certain: The money will be there, and every citizen is hoping that some of it comes to their town. Citizens expect their state and local governments to do all they can to obtain, track and report on stimulus funds.

But it's not easy. "It is an unbelievable challenge for governments to go find the money," said Stuart McKee, national technology officer of U.S. public sector for Microsoft. As a former CIO of Washington state, McKee brings a valuable perspective to how software can help government. And government can use the help with ARR A, since the federal government is placing a big burden on state and local agencies in exchange for funds. "Governments are going to face enormous political and financial risk in just managing the process," McKee said.

Government agencies need new software to meet the transparency and reporting requirements, and they don't have the time or money they'd need to develop it themselves.

McKee has spoken with numerous government leaders, and he repeatedly hears the same concerns about ARR A. "Everybody is facing the same challenges," he said. "Every single agency is trying to solve the same problem. That consists of finding and tracking money." The effort is made harder by geography and logistics. "Unfortunately, many local jurisdictions are trying to solve their problems alone," McKee said. "Every state is coming up with its own interpretation of ARR A requirements. In some cases, additional guidance has increased confusion, and local governments are left to solve these things independently."

Help Is Here

Microsoft Stimulus360 allows government agencies to easily manage, track, report and publish information related to ARR A economic stimulus programs. It was created in response to ARR A, but government agencies plan to continue using it even after stimulus funds have been spent. That's because it raises efficiency in a cost-effective manner. It's a powerful, out-of-the-box tool at a low cost. It's a solution-accelerator built on top of Microsoft's platform/technology, incorporating Microsoft tools that agencies have been using for years, such as Word and Excel.

With Stimulus360, agencies can track federal funding sources, requirements and grant submission processes; manage incoming and existing resources; facilitate downstream funding requests; and compile results, satisfy reporting requirements and publish content in a manner that's easy for citizens to understand.

With its information-rich dashboards, Stimulus360 provides easy-tograsp views, so everyone involved can know the status of grant submissions, funds, projects and more. The dashboards make it easy for people to share information, collaborate, analyze data, and compare results to objectives.

The dashboards work well for numerous government agencies. Whether it's the jobs dashboard or the projects view - or one of several others - a dashboard always gives decision-makers valuable data they need when they're determining next steps.

Spelling It Out

By incorporating data from other Microsoft tools, Stimulus360 keeps things simple. "If people use common systems and platforms, then they will be speaking the same language," said McKee. "When you spend dollars, some of the basic questions are: Is it a grant? Is it a program? A project? Or is it some other thing? Do you call it something else? Software does a great job of translating language, if you will. You can map things back and forth so you can speak in common terminology."